Avengers #158. Wonder Man vs the Vision.

If there's anything we all like to see, it's super-heroes fighting each other.

In fact, it sometimes makes you wonder why comics companies have ever bothered to invent super-villains when they could just give us good guys trying to bash each other's heads in each month.

And so it is that, in The Avengers #158, we finally get to see the Vision vs Wonder Man, which, bearing in mind that the Vision has Wonder Man's brain patterns (whatever they are), means it's Marvel inter-hero antagonism taken to its logical conclusion, as we effectively have a super-hero fighting himself. No doubt, next month, we'll be treated to twenty pages of Captain America punching himself in the face.

The reason why it happens is the Vision's decided that Wonder Man has his eye on the Scarlet Witch and he's now in one of his, "I'm not human. What can an android know of love? I'd better fly into a tempestuous rage about my lack of emotions," moods.

Sadly, despite making the cover, the fight only lasts a few pages before the Avengers get an SOS and set off to deal with Graviton who's still new to his powers and has seized control of the research facility where he works. Consequently, he's now having fun pushing the staff around and making the place float around like a balloon.

I do have to say I like the cut of Graviton's jib. He has the air of an early Silver Age Marvel villain about him, which means you could have imagined him turning up in a formative issue of Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four.

Inevitably, despite their vast numerical advantage, the Avengers soon fall victim to the fiend, mostly because none of them has the smarts to think of sneaking up on him from behind.

I wish I could claim to have strong feelings about this issue but I don't. It's a solid tale written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Sal Buscema, with lots of conflict and drama. Personally, I could have done with the Vision vs Wonder Man action taking up the whole issue, with Graviton being tackled in the next one but at least we can't accuse the mag of skimping on action.

While I'm here, I do feel I should say a word about inker Pablo Marcos. I'm generally not a fan of his work as either a penciller or an inker but his style goes well with Buscema's pencils. For me, Buscema always benefited from having an embellisher who was exactly that, willing to add extra detail to his generally sparse pencils, and Marcos was just such an inker.

"But hold on a moment, you blathersome blundersquid!" I hear you cry. "Never mind all that cobblers about inkers and pencillers and writers and gravity and stuff! What about what we came here for? Who won the fight between the Vision and Wonder Man?"

Well, obviously, no one did. It being a 1970s Marvel mag, it's a draw, with both parties basically running out of steam before being interrupted by Iron Man who tells them off for causing needless damage to the mansion.

Reading comics back in those days, it could be so incredibly frustrating.